When your throw away buddy comedy accidentally rakes in $150 million worldwide, the studio execs will immediately green light a sequel. Plot, narrative, creativity, and filmmaking are all secondary to getting the product into theaters before audiences forget about the original. One year to the weekend that Ride Along muscled its way onto screens assigning itself superlatives for odd couple charisma and action comedy audacity, Ride Along 2 thuds onto screens showing off for all who mistakenly pay to enter the theater its front-runner status for worst film of the year. The talent in front of and behind the camera remains the same and produces a mirror image of last year’s calamity doubling our agony as we not only dredge up awful memories of the first film, but soak in the nonsense from the new episode.

Defenders of Ride Along’s buddy cop duo cite the lead actors’ chemistry together. Ice Cube (The Book of Life) plays the no nonsense, capable detective to Kevin Hart’s (Get Hard) court jester of a beat cop rookie. There is no Danny Glover / Mel Gibson Lethal Weapon chemistry here because there is only room for Hart to repeatedly stop everything and yell at Ice Cube to respect him more and get ready to raise their friendship level a couple notches when they become brothers-in-law. Ice Cube, 180-out from his turn as the menacing 21 and 22 Jump St. police captain, keeps his black out shades on the entire time because if you have to stand still and endure these tedious tirades, at least you don’t have to take it in visually.

Kevin Hart’s Ben Barber is all about respect. He struts around in his new police uniform proudly sporting the shield of authority but rampaging like Rodney Dangerfield. Hart fights with Cube, he fights with his wedding coordinator about hydrangeas, he fights with the police captain, he fights with Olivia Munn as a Miami police detective, and he even fights with an alligator. I remember writing about how frustrating it was to watch Kevin Hart scream every single one of his lines in the last film and he channels the same angry energy again. Hart lacks any sense of steady delivery. He could get up off the couch and say he is going to the bathroom and it would come out as a scream and accusation.

Since sequels must appear brighter and flashier, the setting jumps from gritty Atlanta to sun-drenched Miami South Beach. Chasing some shady drug supplier, the Atlanta boys get to cruise the familiar beach drives and chase suspects through Little Havana. The first guy they dig up is computer hacker AJ (Ken Jeong, The Hangover Part III). Channeling his imbecilic child character from the Hangover series, Jeong is reminiscent of the Joe Pesci character from Lethal Weapon 3. He sits in the back of the car causing trouble and generating outlandish ‘funny’ one-liners. AJ isn’t the only tag along, Olivia Munn joins the crew as the Miami PD’s version of Ice Cube; therefore, in car scenes, we get the two serious detectives up front, Ice Cube and Munn, and the moron twins in the back, Hart and Jeong, arguing about Star Wars.

Other supporting characters include recent makes and models from Chrysler, Dodge, and Jaguar. These fetishized four-wheeled vehicles get as much screen time as bad guy Benjamin Bratt (Snitch) does as the Miami drug kingpin. They frequently get blown up, dented, and smashed as car bombs and downtown chase scenes descend upon our bumbling crew. The first Ride Along set up Hart as Black Hammer, an intense video game player who uses his skills from game playing in the real world. We see Hart playing a racing game early on; therefore, when it comes time to drag race in Miami against an armada of evil BMWs, Hart takes the wheel to zig and zag just like he’s wielding a controller.

Director Tim Story goes a bit further. He switches mid-chase from live action to cartoon caricatures of the scene. He animates Hart and Ice Cube as video game characters in a scene reminiscent of a Grand Theft Auto game. None of it is necessary, it serves no larger purpose, and it comes off cheap looking. Story, no stranger directing Ice Cube and Hart since he helmed Barbershop (2002) and the Think Like A Man films not only lets his actors both overact (Hart) and underact (Cube), but lets some of his experience directing the first two miserable Fantastic Four films invade Ride Along with out of place CGI and animations. Co-writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi remind us all they also wrote the God-awful Aeon Flux film adaptation and cinematographer Mitchell Amundsen notches another forgettable credit alongside his work on Transformers and Now You See Me.

Every time another slap stick stunt such as Hart standing up into a spinning ceiling fan or Hart falling into a chicken coop is passed off as hilarious comedy, truly funny and charismatic buddy comedies should shake their fists in rage at this knock-off pretender. Do your fellow movie-goers a favor and make sure this cash grab of a film does not sniff another $150 million; otherwise, Universal Pictures might assault us with another one of these things.